Permission Marketing

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Poke The Box

The latest book, Poke The Box is a call to action about the initiative you're taking - in your job or in your life, and Seth once again breaks the traditional publishing model by releasing it through The Domino Project.

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THE DIP BLOG by Seth Godin

All Marketers Are Liars Blog

The application deadline for my free college student summer seminar is Friday morning. Please remind any college students you know that they're almost out of time...

The Kickstarter project I launched last month is almost over. The thing to get that's not yet sold out is the behemoth oversized best-of book, which is turning out to be really special, and this is going to be your best chance to get a copy.

He invented the foundational science that led to radio, the AC motor and dozens of other concepts that enable us to live modern lives. He foresaw the energy shortage and global warming. He was also the model for the mad scientist in every bad movie ever made.

He was ridiculed, marginalized and ignored. When the media or the experts or the public didn't know what to do with the progress he pointed to, they shunned the messenger.

Tunis Craven, head of the FCC, said, "There is practically no chance that communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States." Craven said this three years before satellites were used to bring the Olympics to the US from Japan.

And, if you're a full-time college student, or you know someone who might benefit from an intensive three-day seminar in my office (it's a gift from me, there's no charge to attend), please share this with them. The deadline for applications is in just a few days, so hurry and apply if you're interested.

Too often, we're presented with choices that don't please us. We can pick one lousy alternative or the other. And too often, we pick one.

I was struck by Apple's choice to put a glass screen on the original iPhone. Just six weeks before it was announced, Steve Jobs decided he wanted a scratchproof glass screen. The thing is, this wasn't an option. It wasn't possible, reliable, feasible or appropriately priced. It couldn't be done with certainty, and almost any other organization would have taken it off the list of appropriate choices.

It was unreasonable.

And that's the key. Remarkable work is always not on the list, because if it was, it would be commonplace, not remarkable.

The artist says, "that sounds like business, and I want nothing to do with it. It will corrupt me and make me think small."

The businessperson says, "art is frightening, unpredictable and won't pay."

Because the artist fears business, she hesitates to think as big as she could, to imagine the impact she might be able to make, to envision the leverage that's available to her.

And because the businessperson fears art, she holds back, looks for a map, follows the existing path and works hard to fit in, never understanding just how vivid her new ideas might be and how powerful her art could make her.

There's often a route, a way to combine the original, human and connected work you want to do with a market-based solution that will enable it to scale. Once you see it, it's easier to call your bluff and make what you're capable of.

I woke up early to give a speech a few weeks ago and got dressed in the dark. Bad idea. I ended up wearing two slightly different brown shoes on stage, and I was sure that it was the first and only thing that anyone in the audience would notice. I was wrong.

People spend almost no time thinking about what you wear on your feet. A few hours after the meeting, we have no recollection at all about what tie you wore or how your hair was done.

On the other hand, we'll long be impacted by your big idea, the project you didn't launch and the gift you didn't give.

It's easy to obsess about trivia, mostly because the stakes are so small. What happens if we wonder about what we could do that might change everything instead?

"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member..." That's the (Groucho) Marxist credo.

You're invited to speak your mind online. To post thoughtful comments and tweets and posts. You're given a place where you can post your music, or your art or your photography or your take on the state of your industry...

Most of us refuse. We don't want to be part of a community that would have us, apparently. So we sit quietly and watch and take notes and absorb instead of joining the club of contributors.

Retweets are more common than tweets, and listeners are more common than singers.

Because we believe we don't belong. That we're not qualified. That someone with a louder microphone is better than we are.

Past tense perhaps.

Here's the thing: the number of people contributing is going up, and fast. The number of folks that are happy to speak up, to be a member of the contributing group, is as high as it's ever been.

Which companies end up with investors swarming all over them, eager to put in cash?

Hint: in each case, it has little to do with the verifiable, rational analysis of the product. In some markets, things are popular merely because they are popular. John Legend's version of Compared to What is a pale imitation of the original, but don't tell the local teenager that. Jeff Koons is no longer a visionary, but he's a safe bet for gallery owners, investors and people looking for bragging rights...

Whining about what's good is a silly way to do business with people who seek to be in sync. What sync markets care about is, "who else is into this?" Markets like textbooks, surgical devices and nightclubs are all sync markets.

In every one of these markets are people who spot trends, who go first, who set the pace. This group (which doesn't have a defined membership... there's a lot of churn) cares a lot about being seen as right, about going first and being followed. The early trendsetters are not the mass market, but they are acutely aware of what the mass market is going to be willing to do next. (Sadly for marketers in search of a reliable shortcut, these trendsetters are often wrong. That doesn't mean that they don't matter).

Marketing to those that want to be in sync is a fundamentally different project than treating your audience as a horizontal mass of isolated people, all to be approached with the same story at the same time, all making independent decisions. The connections between people are always important, but in sync markets, they're the primary driver.